Roswitha von Gandersheim

Roswitha von Gandersheim (ca. 930/35-ca. 9753/1002) is considered to be the first German woman to have composed literary texts. She was a German canoness writing in Latin addressing her convent sisters, but she also enjoyed considerable respect for her work in other Benedictine convents in Germany. The discovery of her long-forgotten works in 1493 by the humanist scholar and poet laureate Conrad Celtis (1459-1508) had a considerable impact on the nationalist-minded Humanist circles of the era, especially on account of Roswitha's great productivity and creative abilities. This discovery finally seemed to prove that the history of German culture had been unfairly neglected by the admirers of classical Italian and Greek culture. Albrecht